


Breaking the Silence

by Mitternachtssonne (youdidnt)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youdidnt/pseuds/Mitternachtssonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard dies and Liara's world falls silent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Silence

**Author's Note:**

> I am usually not someone who plays a game/reads a book etc. and immediately writes fanfic about it (and if I do I don't publish it) but damn I finished ME3 last week and boy, I was devastated and had to cope with my feelings somehow.  
> Thank you for reading!

#  Breaking the Silence 

**I**

She doesn’t have it in her to attach the plate to the memorial wall. The names are staring down at her, Mordin and Thane and Legion and EDI and Anderson, challenging her to do it. She doesn’t dare to look back, her gaze glued to the one name she is holding in her hands. It seems to taunt her, too, mocking her for so foolishly believing in the promise that she would always come back for Liara. And yet, here they are and she is not.  
The humming engine is the only sound in the room. No one seems to breathe as they are standing behind her, waiting for her to do it. She can’t. She lowers the nameplate gently to the ground, but it slips out of her hand and the clattering sound of metal on metal cuts through the silence like a knife. She flinches back and flees to her room.

**II**

With EDI gone, she spends a lot of time on the bridge, sitting in the vacant seat next to Joker. She doesn’t know where they are headed to. She doesn’t care.  
Joker is quiet, the dark shadows growing beneath his eyes with each passing day. Sometimes he looks at her and there’s a spark in his eyes, but then he really looks at her and it is gone again.  
She doesn’t know if he minds her company, but he never states otherwise. She finds solitude in the silence on the bridge. It is comforting.  
“She said EDI and I were a stupid idea,” he says one day, staring down at his hands and it is then that Liara realizes there are tears in his eyes. Seeing Joker cry is something she never thought she would see and she stretches out her arm, squeezing his hand. He squeezes back and looks at her, smiling faintly.  
“And she said I deserve to be stupid.”

**III**

“We had this tradition,” Chakwas tells her and, _how ugly_ that word sounds, had.  
“Technically we only managed to do it once, so I am not sure if it qualifies as a tradition.”  
Chakwas pulls out a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy from one of the cupboards, setting it on the table between them. “Every year, we would share a bottle together. I wanted to do it earlier, because you never know what happens in war, but she told me to wait until the war is over.”  
She doesn’t have a name anymore, Liara notices. It has become ‘she’ for everyone. She has become a legend and yet no one dares to speak her name.  
The sound of a bottle being uncorked echoes through the medical bay.  
“The war is over,” Chakwas says with a bitter smile, “Mind to share this with me, Dr T’Soni?”

**IV**

The first time she hears her name after the end of the war is when she talks to Garrus. They’re sitting together in the starboard observation deck, the stars following them wherever they go.  
“You know what she said to me?” Garrus slurs, leaning heavily against her and breathing alcohol in her face. She shakes her head in silence.  
“There’s no Shepard without Vakarian,” he quotes, holding up his glass, toasting to the stars.  
It should be weird, to have someone talk about her so openly after days, weeks, maybe even months of silence. She can’t tell anymore. It should hurt and make her flinch back, but she only leans back against Garrus and closes her eyes. He is hard where she was soft and everything about him feels wrong, but she allows herself to indulge in this, if only for a moment.  
“But there is one thing she had wrong, you know,” he continues and she looks up at him. She is no expert on turian appearance, but even she can see the weariness in his expression. As much as she wants to, she can’t bring herself to say the comforting words they both seek. All she can do is have this moment with him, here beneath the stars that keep on shining, even after everything that has happened.  
“What she didn’t know is that there is also no Vakarian without Shepard,” Garrus mutters into his glass. She slips her arms around his waist and presses her eyes shut.

**V**

“I miss her,” Kaidan says. They’re all sitting together in the crew quarters, huddled close around the small table, a deck of cards lying between them. “God, do I miss her.”  
It is quiet. Liara feels Garrus next to her stiffen.  
“Yeah,” James agrees softly after a while and all that Liara can think of is that such a small sound shouldn’t come out of a man this big.  
“It feels…,” Tali starts and then falters, her gaze falling down on her cards. She has a perfect hand.  
“Too quiet,” Liara supplies. Her voice is raspy from disuse but it fills out the room, all the way from the ceiling to the floor and into the corners. They look at her in surprise.  
“Yeah,” this time it is Samantha who agrees, putting down her cards and leaving the room. Liara can see her wiping the tears out of her eyes.

**VI**

There’s a soft knock on the door. She almost expects Glyph to say something, but then she remembers that Glyph is gone, too. Strangely, the thought upsets her more than everything else that has happened recently.  
“Liara, can I come in?” Tali says.  
She makes a small noise and the door opens.  
“I wanted to say goodbye,” Tali tells her, sitting down on one of the chairs. With the console shut off and all the monitors gone black, all Liara can see is her silhouette.  
“Are you leaving?” Liara whispers. Maybe Tali already told her. Maybe she didn’t.  
Tali nods.  
“They might have found a way to get the Mass Relay’s working again. They haven’t been destroyed completely and with everyone’s help…” she stops, pulling a familiar stone out of her pocket. “I could go back to Rannoch.”  
“Oh,” Liara says and thinks _I will miss you._  
“I… I am happy for you, Tali,” she says, and she means it and she wants her to stay.  
“Thank you, Liara. Keelah se'lai. And… I am sorry.”

**VII**

“Have you been to her room?” James asks her. She shakes her head without hesitation. By the goddess, no.  
“I thought so,” James nods. “I think no one has since…”  
“Yeah,” she interrupts him. She doesn’t want to hear it. The feelings are starting to creep up again and she doesn’t want it, wants to hide in her world of silence and darkness instead.  
“Maybe it is good for you, Doc,” James offers. “We’re all worried.”  
She wants to tell him she is fine, that there is nothing to worry about, but what would be the point?

**VIII**

“Liara.”  
There is something in his voice that makes her get on her feet immediately. The door to the starboard observation deck closes behind him and why does it feel like the end of the war was only yesterday, while them sitting here, drunk and looking at the stars, seems like a hundred years ago?  
“They found her body in the rubbles of the Citadel,” Garrus tells her and all the air leaves her lungs. It has been too long, but she can’t help but look at Garrus with open eyes and she told herself to stop hoping, but. But.  
A single look is all it takes to tear her apart, turn her insides out and make her fall to her knees, screaming.

**IX**

Everyone has things to do nowadays; rebuilding what the Reapers have destroyed, working on the Mass Relays, ensuring each other’s survival.  
“I wish you could see this,” she says to herself in the quiet of the room. “Despite the war being over, everyone is still working together. It is beautiful.”  
The room is silent.  
“I miss you so much,” Liara says.  
The room stays silent.

**X**

It is Steve that finally gets through to her. She never really payed much attention to him, but now he is here and he is holding her while telling her stories about his husband. There are tears in his eyes, too, but he keeps on talking and talking and talking until her eyes fall shut. When she opens them again, it is quiet, but Steve is still there and then it is Liara who is talking. She tells him about how they first met, how it felt to fall and what it was like to hit the ground. She talks to him about their time together, what it is like to mourn her not once, but twice, and her project. She talks until her voice gives out and yet Steve stays with her.  
She doesn’t tell him about her farewell gift. She keeps that to herself, hidden away in a place filled with sound and colour.

**XI**

Despite of most of them leaving the Normandy, they all came back for this. It is not like the public funeral, the one she didn’t go to, where everyone celebrated and mourned their hero. Instead it is private and quiet, just them, how it is supposed to be.  
They’re standing in front of the memorial wall and the names of the dead are staring at her again. It feels like they are judging her. After all, she is alive while they are not. This time, she stares back.  
Instead of the plate she is holding a small, electronic device. She inhales deeply, closes her eyes and presses a button. Until a few days ago, Liara hadn’t known that Glpyh recorded this part, too.  
“Careful this doesn’t sound like a diary,” a too familiar voice comes out of the device and fills the air. She can hear the inhales of breath behind her back.  
“I can’t help myself. You’re a good friend, Shepard,” she hears her own voice as she sets down the device in front of the wall.  
“You’ve been there for me, too, Liara,” Shepard says.

**XII**

The rebuild of London is slow, but progressing. She likes the city most at night with the stars being her only company. This time, though, she is not alone.  
They stop in front of the memorial that was built in honour of her. Pictures, flowers and letters are scattered all over the ground and a small smile tugs at Liara’s lips.  
“After all that she has been through,” Garrus says, placing a flower in front of the memorial, “She finally deserves some rest.”  
“Shepard was never the resting type,” Liara says and it feels oddly satisfying to be able to say her name again. Garrus huffs a laugh.  
“True,” he says, standing next to her.  
“I did write her name in the stars, once,” Liara tells him.  
“Yeah?” Garrus asks softly. “Tell me about it.”  
They sit down in front of the memorial and Liara starts talking, her gaze never leaving the sky above them. Out of the corner of her eye she spots a shooting star, bright and beautiful, and she smiles.


End file.
